Description

Pieter Wenning — often compared to Frans Oerder, another master of South African painting — was born in Holland and immigrated to South Africa in 1905, bringing with him a fluency in contemporary Dutch painterly styles. Although both Wenning and Oerder are said to have introduced international landscape and realism concerns to South Africa, Wenning’s own style differs vastly to that of his contemporary. Wenning’s is a more delicate preoccupation with the object of study itself, rather than a concern for capturing the truth of its surroundings — in other words, as art historian Esme Berman argues in her renowned reference book, The Story of South African Painting:

It is evident that Oerder was concerned primarily with objective truth; Wenning, on the other hand, though giving full consideration to the physical appearance of the object, has emphasised the decorative properties inherent in its shape and colour (1975:29).

Wenning’s skilful use of colour to beautify and enhance the ornamental presence of his subject matter is not only evident in his still lives, but also in his landscape paintings, of which “Malta Farm” is a seminal piece. Grounding the scene is an old farm house to the right of the painting, which leans forward out of the background, taking on a three-dimensional quality with the various bark-like browns that splinter down its front. In contrast, the lilac-flecked baby-blue sky, against which the house is depicted, lies flat against the canvas, reflective of Berman’s comment that “the tranquil style which Wenning inherited from his Dutch mentors was eminently responsive to the soft light and the verdure of the Cape Peninsula” (1975:26).

Rather than commit himself to complete realism, Wenning has given the painting character through a thoughtful exhibition of the colours that render the scene charmingly derelict, serenely lonesome. The painting evidences a high-point in Wenning’s creativity, as it was undoubtedly painted after he abandoned Johannesburg’s jaundiced landscape for the verdancy of the Cape Peninsula. The muddied path that stretches up towards the centre foreground appears almost to be a reflective pool of water, slowly seeping into the verdigris which surrounds it. Together with the tired tilt of the fence behind it, the field in the foreground seems to swell melodiously, as if uttering Wenning’s notion that “what we see around us is merely our theme upon which we ourselves must create the melody” (in Berman 1975:27).

Whereas the vast majority of the work that he created during his time in the Cape tends to chant an introspective, uneasy tune, “Malta Farm” is one of Wenning’s more hopeful scenes which, despite its apparent loneliness, seems to reflect an ease that the artist experienced whilst immersed in his surroundings. The painting is highly unusual in this regard — notable and indeed valuable for the distinct change in tone that it creates within the broader body of the artist’s oeuvre.